An ideal animal litter is one that is highly absorbent, controls odor, and does not break down to the point that the animal tracks the litter outside of its container. Various solutions have been proposed and marketed. Clumping agents have been included in litter material, so that the soiled portions of the litter clump together to control odor and facilitate removal of just the soiled portions of the litter. However, clumping agents alone do not sufficiently control odor for most applications. Odor control is generally addressed by adding inorganic or organic acids, chemicals, buffering agents, fragrances and/or other mixtures and compositions to the litter to mask the odor and/or produce an odor masking smell when the litter is soiled. Some of these additives are activated by the animal waste itself, while others are activated by agitation of the litter by the animal. Odor control can also be addressed by sprays and other additives that are applied to the litter after it is soiled.
The drawback to most of these litters is that the additives used are expensive to make or obtain, generate hazardous waste byproducts during manufacture, and/or fail to break down properly when disposed in landfills.
It is known that pelletized walnut shell byproducts can be used for wood burning applications. In large scale processing of walnuts, cracking plants typically remove the meat of the walnuts from their shells. The shell byproduct left behind comprises the outer shell itself, the pelica (thin layer between the shell and the meat) and the membrane (thin layer between sections of the meat). Traditionally, the shell byproduct is burned or otherwise disposed of in landfills. However, the shell byproduct has also been combined with saw dust, pelletized by mixing with water and compressing the resulting slurry through a small holes in a die, and marketed as a wood burning product. There was no suggestion however that the pellet composition could be altered to provide odor control as an animal litter.
There is a need for an absorbent organic litter that sufficiently controls odor without reliance on expensive inorganic chemical additives.